p Bourgeois nationalism and proletarian internationalism are antipodes. Bourgeois nationalism is the bourgeois class view of, and policy on, the national question, catering for capitalist exploitation and competition at home and abroad, and helping the bourgeoisie to establish a class peace within the nation for the purpose of safeguarding the narrow, selfseeking class interests of its economic, political and ideological domination.

p In the imperialist countries, aggressive bourgeois nationalism is being increasingly seen as incompatible with true national interests. It takes the form of racism, chauvinism, and in the class clashes with the true national interests of the peoples fighting for the complete abolition of colonialism and neocolonialism, ever more frequently appears as “supra-national” cosmopolitanism, which denies and tramples on the national sovereignty of its own people and the national independence of other peoples. Bourgeois ideologists are now working hard to get the peoples of the world to accept such cosmopolitan ideas as the “free world”, “Atlanticism”, “world government”, and “world law”, or to establish chauvinist claims to the world-wide importance of the “American way of life”.

p All of this clashes at root with the true national interests of the peoples and of world social progress.

p Bourgeois nationalism is a transient phenomenon, for it has private property as its source and material basis. It grows out of private-enterprise competition and is designed to perpetuate the exploitation of the working masses by splitting their ranks.

p Racism is an extreme form of nationalism, and gives the fullest expression to the claims of one’s nation to 247 exclusiveness and superiority, to its “right” to dominate other nations. Racism was used by the nazis to start the Second World War.

p Racism is a reactionary expression of the biological trend in sociology. All brands of racism are based on the false premise that races and nations are unequal. In actual fact, racial distinctions have appreciable social importance. Science has fully refuted the racists’ speculations on men’s anatomical and physiological features.

p Racism has suffered a fiasco not only in science but also in social life. The main blow at racism was dealt by the epoch-making achievements of the peoples which have taken the socialist path and also by the successes of the national liberation movement.

p All of this has necessarily had an effect on the forms in which racist ideas are being spread.

p These main aspects have been suggested by bourgeois ideologists for tackling the “racial problem”: 1) re- establishment of biological racism which says that mankind has always consisted of “superior” and “inferior” races; 2) “ modernisation” of racial theories expounding historical and social instead of biological arguments to prove the “ inferiority” of some nations and races; 3) switching of the accent from assertion of “inferiority” to an allegedly “ instinctive” hatred which inevitably makes for hostile relations between different races. Psychoracism has also acquired considerable importance in the present conditions.

p The neoracists seek to perpetuate racial oppression. Any brand of racism rests on socio-economic factors, and this is most evident from the racist domestic policy pursued by US imperialism. Black people, who make up a sizable section of the US labour force, are paid much less than the white people for their work. The winning of civil rights and the abolition of the segregation practised against the black people would markedly strengthen the democratic movement in the USA. No wonder, therefore, that the reactionary forces have been doing their utmost to prevent any cohesion between black and white working people. Racist propaganda has also had some effect on the blacks. Some groups (for instance, Black Muslims) have started to preach an “inside-out” racism, spreading a bellicose attitude of racial hatred for the whites. This is in fact a reflection of the fiercest persecution and racial hatred originated by 248 the whites, but it can do no more than weaken black emancipation movement and help the reactionaries throw dirt on the civil rights movement.

p The fight against racism is an important task for all progressive forces. What Lenin said at the turn of the century is still meaningful today: “The duty of all class-conscious workers is to rise with all their might against those who are stirring up national hatred and diverting the attention of the working people from their real enemies.”  [248•1  Lenin branded the men who organised the Black Hundreds, those who set Tatars against Armenians, and mounted pogroms. Lenin condemned the slave-holding traditions, and the persecution and economic and cultural oppression practised against the black people. He wrote: “The capitalists strive to sow and foment hatred between workers of different faiths, different nations and different races ... the rich in all countries are in alliance to oppress, crush, rob and disunite the workers. ... Shame on those who foment hatred towards other nations.

p “Long live the fraternal trust and fighting alliance of the workers of all nations in the struggle to overthrow capital.”  [248•2 

p Uniting the international ranks of the working people for the struggle against international capital continues to be a pressing task of the day.

p The Main Document of the International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties says: “Imperialism makes use of racialism to divide the peoples and maintain its rule. Wide sections of the people reject racialism and can be drawn into active struggle against it. In such action they will come to realise that eradication of racialism is closely connected with the struggle against imperialism and its ideological foundations.”  [248•3 

p “We Communists again call on all honest men in the world to unite their efforts in the struggle against the manhating ideology and practices of racialism. We call for the broadest possible protest movement against the most ignominious phenomenon of our time, the barbarous persecution of the 25 million Negroes in the USA, the racialist terror 249 in South Africa and Rhodesia, the persecution of the Arab population in occupied territory and in Israel, against racial and national discrimination, against Zionism, and antiSemitism, all of which are fanned by reactionary capitalist forces and which they use to mislead the masses politi- cally.”  [249•1 

p Gus Hall, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the USA, addressing a meeting at the Kremlin Palace of Congresses on April 22, 1970, to mark the Lenin Centenary, declared: “Because the US policies of imperialist aggression and its domestic policies are sustained by the ideology of racism, chauvinism and brutal genocide, Lenin’s sharp stand and insistence upon the need to carry on a sustained struggle against all manifestations of this ideological narcotic has a very special meaning.”  [249•2 

p Bourgeois nationalism, an ideological trend expressing the class interests of the imperialist reactionaries, is not only an instrument of imperialist domestic policy, but also of its foreign policy, where blatantly nationalistic and chauvinistic ideas are usually interwoven with cosmopolitan ideas.  [249•3 

p Cosmopolitanism springs from extreme bourgeois nationalism. The bourgeois nationalists, who claim their own bourgeoisie to be a perfect model in every sense, in fact lay claim to the spread of their influence across the world. Denying other nations the right to an existence of their own, bourgeois nationalists claim their own national features to be worthy of universal, cosmopolitan application.

p Bourgeois cosmopolitanism and chauvinistic nationalism are two sides of the same imperialist view of the national question. Cosmopolitanism, like aggressive bourgeois nationalism, helps the imperialists to enslave other nations, just as bourgeois nationalism helps to undermine the class- consciousness of the working people. The cosmopolitan idea of a “world spiritual community”, of a “universal ideological homogeneity” is closely connected with bourgeois national propaganda of the “class peace” within each nation. %

p The bourgeoisie has always sought to use the nationalistic ideology in its efforts to undermine the class consciousness 250 of the workers in the individual countries, so as to strengthen its positions in the fight against the working class. The bourgeoisie has used the idea of a “national community” to cover up the class contradiction between itself and the proletariat and to divert the latter from the class struggle. In the new historical conditions, the bourgeoisie seeks to undermine the class consciousness of the working people by spreading the idea not only of a national but also of a “supra-national” community. In view of the growing influence exerted by the ideas of world socialism, the bourgeoisie now finds it especially necessary to fall back on cosmopolitanism with its “universal” apology of man’s exploitation of man and of the power of capital.

p In actual life, cosmopolitans or bourgeois nationalistimperialists are never to be found in any “pure state”. Thus, for instance, depending on the situation German bourgeois nationalist-imperialists either trumpet chauvinistic and racist slogans or hoist the supra-national flag of “European ideal”. Spokesmen for the French financial oligarchy, who are connected with US capital, have pursued a cosmopolitan policy of national betrayal, a fact which has not prevented them from remaining bourgeois nationalist- imperialists.

p One of the most active propagandists of cosmopolitanism, the reactionary US sociologist and technocrat, James Burnham, has admitted that cosmopolitan slogans have served US imperialist reactionaries as a cover for US racism. He wrote: “It goes without saying that the attempt at World Empire will not be carried out under the open slogan of ’World Empire’. More acceptable phrases, such as ’World Federation’, ’World Republic’, ’United States of the World’, ’World Government’, or even ’United Nations’ will be used. ... The truth is that the growing belief in, and propaganda for, various sorts of World Government are in historical actuality both a symptom of the need for a World Empire, a support for the attempt to achieve such an Empire, and a psychological preparation for its acceptance, if it comes.”  [250•1 

p It is for the purpose of this psychological preparation, for the purpose of deceiving the masses, that the demagogic 251 catchwords of cosmopolitanism and its pseudo-scientific arguments are being used.

p Modern bourgeois cosmopolitanism is, consequently, a brand of imperialist, aggressive, reactionary bourgeois nationalism.

p The world balance has tilted in favour of socialism, and the ideology of “supra-national” cosmopolitanism was expressed in the narrower framework of such doctrines as “Atlantic community”, “European community”, etc. A specific feature of the new approach as compared with the open claims to world domination by propagandists of the “Pax Americana” like James Burnham, is the ever more demagogically liberal and democratic camouflage, which goes hand in hand with an ever more restrained assessment of the forces and potentialities of the capitalist West.

p Imperialist rivalry has gone forward behind the screen of various regional (mainly European) “supra-national” plans, each variant bearing the stamp of the imperialist interests ranged against each other and masking the revengeseeking nationalistic aspirations of West German imperialism. The ideologists of neofascism hope that the establishment of “supra-national” united Europe would make them masters of the situation in Western Europe and help them to realise their aggressive aspirations.

p The schemes for establishing a “united Europe” produced by American, British, or West German reactionary circles are geared to the aims of the various imperialist groupings and are designed to help them consolidate their positions within the framework of imperialist rivalry.

p The contradictions reflecting deep-going and ineradicable clash of economic interests between the imperialists have had a considerable part to play in the fact that all the projects for setting up a monolithic “European political community” remain on paper. However, there has been no relaxation of efforts to cobble a united “supra-national” imperialist front in Western Europe. The various measures for “European unification” through the establishment of diverse close “communities” testify to the enhancement of the uniting tendency among the imperialists in face of the successes scored by socialism and the national liberation movement, once again bearing out Lenin’s profound analysis of the United States of Europe slogan.

p Lenin emphasised that on the present, that is, capitalist, 252 basis, a United States of Europe can be no more than an organisation of reaction set up for exerting joint pressure on socialism in Europe and jointly defending their enslaved colonies. That is why the idea of “supra-national European union” is being plugged so vigorously in all its variants. The main purpose of all these measures in “unifying” Europe is to try to stamp out socialism in Western Europe and create a striking force for aggressive attempts at restoring capitalism in the socialist countries.

p The progressive forces of the world are doing everything to safeguard mankind from the threat of another world war and to eliminate the hotbed of war on the globe.

p The struggle for peace and against the threat of a world thermonuclear war is closely connected with the need to expose the ideologists of blatant aggressive imperialist nationalism and the ideologies of hypocritical “supra-national” cosmopolitanism, whatever its form.

p The Marxist-Leninist class analysis of nationalism which starts from its social content, is combined with the concrete historical approach which rejects the abstract view of nationalism as a national ideology “in general”, outside the socio-historical context and the particular period.

p When the modern European nations were in the making, when capitalism was on the upgrade in its early period, bourgeois nationalism was a very different thing from the present-day aggressive nationalism of the imperialist bourgeoisie. Even today, the content of nationalism tends to differ with the conditions. Lenin wrote: “A distinction must necessarily be made between the nationalism of an oppressor nation and that of an oppressed nation, the nationalism of a big nation and that of a small nation.”  [252•1  “The bourgeois nationalism of any oppressed nation has a general democratic content that is directed against oppression, and it is this content that we unconditionally support. At the same time we strictly distinguish it from the tendency towards national exclusiveness.”  [252•2 

p The contradictory content of the nationalism of oppressed nations creates the possibility of evolution (depending on the balance of class forces at home and abroad) of national ideology in these countries in different directions either 253 towards the ideology of socialist internationalism, which blends the defence of truly national interests and the interests of social progress, or towards national .exclusiveness, isolation and national egoism. Because of the fairly rapid socio-political developments in the emergent countries today, they reveal an ever more pronounced law of the reactionary aspects of nationalism being gradually supplanted by an ideology meeting the true national interests of these countries, interests which are alien to the idea of national exclusiveness. The struggle to consolidate the political and economic independence of the emergent countries and establish a socialist orientation has given the progressive revolutionary-democratic circles in these countries a growing awareness of the need for the utmost strengthening of international anti-imperialist ties, thereby leading them up to an understanding of the importance of proletarian internationalism as a key principle consolidating the positions of the peoples in the fight against imperialism.

p In the present-day conditions, proletarian internationalism is not only a great and inspiring slogan of the international communist movement; it has also been embodied in the practice of socialist construction and in the all-round co-operation between the socialist countries.

The world socialist community is advancing, overcoming numerous difficulties on its way. It is confronted with the constant striving of imperialism to exert economic, political and ideological pressure on the socialist world. Nationalism is a dangerous weapon wielded by imperialism in its subversive activity against the socialist countries.